Sunday, February 7, 2010

Picked up 7 inches at Northstar overnight. That brought the weekend total to 13 inches. That is about 5 inches less than predicted before the storms started as the storms dove a bit further South than expected.

Cutoff lows are really hard to predict in their track. Tuesday's cutoff low looks to come close enough to bring some snow as it dives down the CA coast but how much is still in question. Either way it looks like only several inches at best.

Another storm dives in to our North on Friday bringing us another storm measured in inches.

My fear may be coming true for next week. There is a ton of arctic air pouring into the country from the negative Arctic Oscillation. Another blizzard is going to affect the East Coast Wed & Thurs. This storm will drive the arctic air into the Eastern half of the country on it's backside. The NAO is slowly trending negative and now the models show it locking the cold air in over the Eastern half of the country with a block off the East coast. Not good for us!

It will be a battle of the storms trying to come into the West coast vs. the ridge blocked in over the Western half of the country. Right now it is starting to look like the ridge is going to win as it blocks and splits storms off the coast sending any moisture well South of us. We'll need the block to weaken and the arctic air to push off the East coast to get the storms back into the West Coast. This is the same thing that happened the beginning of January.

A strong El Nino jet is useless when there is a ton of arctic air and blocking over the Eastern half of the country. During El Nino the lower pressures coming across the Southern half of the country will allow the arctic air, when it's there, to dive far down into the country forming a block for us. I am getting tired of waiting for a big storm. Just have to sit and watch what happens over the East over the next week because that will tell us what will happen here the following week. Stay tuned........BA